Slippery lyrics

Movie projector: Tyler Perry set to rule the box office again; '9' is off to a good start

With many A-list actors no longer able to guarantee a big opening for a pricey tentpole movie anymore, Tyler Perry is as close as Hollywood comes to Mr. Reliable.

The mini-media mogul's seventh movie in the last three and a half years, "I Can Do Bad All by Myself," will be released by Lionsgate tomorrow and has a near lock on the top spot for the weekend, with ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada expected to be around $20 million.

That should make the low-cost picture yet another profit generator for Lionsgate, which saw its theatrical revenue decline 26% in the most recent quarter. 

More than 50% of African Americans, who make up most of Perry's fan base, have indicated in pre-release polling that they are interested in the movie, according to a person who has seen the data. As it regularly does for Perry films, Lionsgate has booked a higher-than-average number of theaters in the South for "I Can Do Bad All by Myself" in order to maximize exposure to Perry's base audience.

Last year, Lionsgate opened Perry's "The Family That Preys" on the same weekend and grossed $17.4 million. There is some speculation that the actor/writer/director's fan base has expanded after the spectacular success of February's "Madea Goes to Jail," which took in $41 million in its opening weekend.

How much will "I Can Do Bad All by Myself" make on its opening weekend?(online surveys)

The weekend's wild card, executives at several studios said, is "9." Focus Features opened the quirky stop-motion animated film Wednesday to take advantage of the 9/9/09 date and sold $3.1 million worth of tickets, a solid start given how unusual it is for a movie to debut midweek in September. It probably will take in about $1 million today and collect low- to mid-teen millions over the weekend.

The movie, which cost $30 million to produce, is generating strong interest among college-aged audiences. Focus is hoping that "9" will attract an art-house adult crowd with its offbeat tone, as well as families, just like the studio's February hit "Coraline," which grossed $75.3 million domestically.

Summit Entertainment's horror movie "Sorority Row" and Dark Castle's thriller "Whiteout," which is being distributed by Warner Bros., may potentially cut into each others' audiences as both try to attract young women. Summit has been adjusting its marketing to hopefully draw more young men, and its film appears to have a slight edge going into the weekend, though both movies are expected to each gross $5 million to $8 million.

"Sorority Row" cost only $12.5 million to produce, while "Whiteout," which stars Kate Beckinsdale, carries a heftier price tag of about $35 million.

-- Ben Fritz

Top photo: Taraji P. Henson, Mary J. Blige and Adam Rodriguez in "I Can Do Bad All by Myself." Credit: Quantrell D. Colbert / Lionsgate. Bottom photo: A scene from "9." Credit: Focus Features.

'Supernatural' returns: It's the end of the world as they know it &mdash and it's funny!

The following feature is based on this extensive interview with "Supernatural" creator Eric Kripke. To see clips from the Season 5 premiere and my posts about previous seasons of "Supernatural," go here, here and here. For an interview with Misha Collins (a.k.a. the angel Castiel), go here. "Supernatural" fans, come back to this site Friday for exclusive comments from Kripke and from one of the show's cast members about the events of Thursday's season premiere. Finally, for newcomers to the show, the video clip is on this post should get you "up to speed" on where things stand as Season 5 begins. For longtime followers of "Supernatural," this fan video is just sublime (and I discovered the video via the great SuperWiki).

The first half of “Supernatural’s” debut season gave few indications of what the show would become.

Back in 2005, as is the case now, there were monsters, ghouls and demons on the prowl. Two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester (Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles), would go from city to city in their 1967 Impala and hunt these otherworldly critters down, frequently quipping along the way.

But creator Eric Kripke is well aware that “Supernatural,” which returns for its fifth season at 8 p.m. Central Thursday on WGN-Ch. 9, has evolved far beyond the idea he pitched several years ago.

Season 5 depicts the brothers trying to stop the apocalypse, dealing with the arrival of Lucifer (Mark Pellegrino) and other rather large events. Yet the focus of this solid, compelling and funny (yes, funny!) show remains admirably clear: “Supernatural” is less about monsters and more about familial bonds and how they somehow survive self-doubt and radical tests of loyalty.

When the show began, Sam and Dean were merely “an engine to get us in and out of different horror movies every week,” Kripke said in an interview at San Diego Comic-Con in July.

Then Kripke and fellow executive producer/director Robert Singer had an epiphany: Padalecki and Ackles’ subtle skills and palpable chemistry could anchor a much more emotionally compelling story about two young men who lost their parents and sometimes come close to losing faith in themselves and each other.

“To me, the story is about,  ‘Can the strength of family overcome destiny and fate, and can family save the world?’.” Kripke said. “[My worldview] is that the only thing that matters is family and personal connection; that’s the only thing that gives life meaning. Religion and gods and beliefs -- for me, it all comes down to your brother.  And your brother might be the brother in your family, or it might be the guy next to you in the foxhole -- it's about human connections.”

The show’s fourth season upped the stakes in several ways: When he thought his brother was dead, Sam became addicted to demon blood and experimented with dangerous powers. Dean, who’d been sent to hell to fulfill a contract, was pulled out  by an angel, but only after going through terrifying experiences, some of which left him guilt-ridden. And Castiel, the angel who pulled Dean out of Hell and tried to prepare Dean for his special role in God's plan, was played so well by Misha Collins that the actor is now a series regular on "Supernatural."

Viewers and the press responded positively to Season 4, "Supernatural's" ratings increased and CW executives are already talking about a potential sixth season. Where that would go is anyone's guess, given that Kripke has said many times that he doesn't want to drag out the Apocalypse story over more than one season (and that's one of the great pleasures of the show -- its mythology is interesting and well-crafted but not overwhelming).

Kripke said the show had always planned to bring in ever more powerful demons, including Lucifer, but he hadn’t thought about adding angels until Season 3 was over.

“We [always] wanted this ‘Lord of the Rings’ scope, but we could never have it because we couldn’t afford these massive battles,” Kripke said. “But ... now you can have these two massive armies of demons and angelsâ€"they can mesh and clash in a way that’s really satisfying, and [you can have the giant clashes] just off-camera.

“We slap our forehead against our hands, and say, ‘Why didn’t we think of it sooner?’” he said. “Look at ‘Star Wars’ for a moment. You have this massive empire, and you have this massive rebellion. But the story is about one farm boy, a princess and a pirate.”

Given that "Supernatural" has always displayed a subversive sense of humor, viewers shouldn't expect the apocalypse to be all doom and gloom, Kripke said.

"It just feels really fun and rollicking because either we're finding quirky humor, or there's a gallows humor from fighting a fight that you know you can't win," said Kripke. "There's a lot of heroic [moments], you know, very much like IndianaJones kind of [moments] -- "Ah, well, screw it!"  And you dive into thefray anyway."

And if you're expecting an angry Lucifer sporting horns and a forked tail, well, don't. "Supernatural's" version of Lucifer, who appears in the third episode of the season, is not what you may be expecting.

Lucifer was sent to Hell around the time of the Garden of Eden, and "now he comes back up, and there's six billion [people], and look what they've done to the planet," Kripke said. "One of the ways we're trying to make him a little more complicated is to say, he actually finds the [original state of the] planet beautiful. He sees it as really his father's masterwork, and these hairless monkeys have just ruined the place….It was this beautiful natural garden, and we've turned it into this cesspool, and he wants everyone punished as a result."

Slippery lyrics
When I heard the Hurricane ChrisÂ's song titled Halle Berry, I couldnÂ't believe my ears. Not because the song is about Halle Berry, itÂ's the way he says it (Halllee Berreeey! Halle Berry!) that makes it quite funny.
Review: '9' is lovely to look at
The new '9' is beautiful to watch but the storytelling is shaky.
Baseball's Poet On His Love For Verse

Fernando Perez, the 26-year-old outfielder for the Tampa Bay Rays, has written an essay in the September issue of Poetry Magazine about the firm place poetry holds in his life. Perez says poetry and baseball occupy different realms of his life.

BRAZIL: Artistic Energy as Antidote to Exclusion
SALVADOR, Brazil, Sep 10 (IPS)Putting the power of art to the test in extreme situations has become an unintended but necessary task for the Axé Project, a Brazilian non-governmental organisation (NGO) aimed at creating the conditions for street kids and other at-risk children to overcome educational, family and community exclusion.